on the lead of the Rolex 24 At Daytona Driver Challenge presented by Sunoco after a dramatic weekend at Spa-Francorchamps.
Both the Avon Tyres British GT Championship and the Radical UK Cup raced at Spa-Francorchamps over the weekend of 8th-10th May. Derek Johnston in the Radical UK Cup came out on top with two wins, one of which was a typically dramatic Spa "heavens open" affair. Unfortunately for him, the Radical UK Cup had a slight dip in contenders over the weekend with only 9 cars starting, which meant that even though Derek, racing with the experienced Stuart Moseley, won both races he could only count 90% of his maximum scores for winning.
The British GT Championship was exceptionally dramatic with the previous the Driver Challenge leader, Stuart Hall, suffering a drive-through penalty in race one (for a pit stop that was just one second less than the prescribed minimum) and then crashing out his Mosler in race two in the opening misty and slippery first quarter of the one hour race. This means that he has dropped from the top of the leader board with an average 120 points to 67.5 and 4th overall in the Driver Challenge standings.
Although Stuart and Daniel Brown lost the win in race one due to the penalty, it was their team boss, Martin Short, driving with Gregor Fisken, who came through to take the win. After setting a blistering pole position and a new lap record in the Rosso Verde Ferrari, the Flying Dane, Allan Simonsen, had to settle for 4th after a steady opening stint in the car from Hector Lester, but he had the satisfaction of overtaking Stuart Hall towards the end of the race.
In race two it was Simonsen and Lester almost all the way, but in a dramatic end to the race Craig Wilkins found a way past Lester to score a first British GT win for himself, sharing the ABG Motorsport Viper with Aaron Scott.
Daniel Ricciardo from British F3 is now second in the standings behind Johnston followed by Allan Simonsen from British GT. The points table in full is here. However, expect major changes in the standings after next weekend when the SPEED Sports Prototype Series has its first race at Anglesey on May 16th!
